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SPEECH OF SECRETARY ROOT AT THE 
LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF 
THE BUILDING FOR THE INTERNATIONAL 
UNION OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS, AT 
WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 11, 1908. 




Class V '^Q^ 

Book_.Lk^ 



SPEECH OF SECRETARY ROOT AT THE 
LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF 
THE BUILDING FOR THE INTERNATIONAL 
UNION OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS, AT 
WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 11, 1908. 






/- 1 ,-, 



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Mr. President and Gentlemen : 

We are here to lay the corner stone of the 
building which is to be the home of the Interna- 
tional Union of American Republics. 

The wise liberality of the Congress of the 
United States has provided the means for the pur- 
chase of this tract of land — five acres in extent — 
near the White House and the great Executive 
Departments, bounded on every side by public 
streets and facing to the east and south upon 
public parks which it will always be the care of the 
National Government to render continually more 
beautiful in execution of its design to make the 
national capital an object of national pride and a 
source of that pleasure which comes to rich and 
poor alike from the education of taste. 

The public spirit and enthusiasm for the good 
of humanity which have inspired an American 
citizen, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, in his administration 
of a great fortune, have led him to devote the 
adequate and ample sum of three-quarters of a mil- 
lion dollars to the construction of the building. 



Into the appropriate adornment and fitting of 
the edifice will go the contributions of every 
American Republic, already pledged and, in a great 
measure, already paid into the fund of the Union. 

The International Union for which the building 
is erected is a voluntary association, the members 
of which are all the American nations from Cape 
Horn to the Great Lakes. It had its origin in the 
first Pan-American Conference held at Washington 
in 1889, and it has been developed and improved in 
efficiency under the resolutions of the succeeding 
conferences in Mexico and Brazil. Its primary ob- 
ject is to break down the barriers of mutual igno- 
rance between the nations of America by collecting 
and making accessible, furnishing and spreading, 
information about every country among the people 
of every other country in the Union, to facilitate 
and stimulate intercourse, trade, acquaintance, good 
understanding, fellowship, and sympathy. For this 
purpose it has established in Washington a Bureau 
or Office under the direction of a Governingr Board 
composed of the official representatives in W^ash- 
ington of all the Republics, and having a Director 
and Secretary, with a force of assistants and trans- 
lators and clerks. 

The Bureau has established a rapidly increasing 
library of history, travel, description, statistics, and 
literature of the American nations. It publishes a 



Monthly Bulletin of current public events and ex- 
isting conditions in all the united countries, which 
is circulated in every country. It carries on an 
enormous correspondence with every part of both 
continents, answering the questions of seekers for 
information about the laws, customs, conditions, 
opportunities, and personnel of the different coun- 
tries; and it has become a medium of introduction 
and guidance for international intercourse. 

The Governing Board is also a permanent com- 
mittee charged with the duty of seeing that the 
resolutions of each Pan-American Conference are 
carried out and that suitable preparation is made 
for the next succeeding conference. 

The increasing work of the Bureau has greatly 
outgrown the facilities of its cramped quarters on 
Pennsylvania avenue, and now at the close of its 
second decade and under the influence of the great 
movement of awakened sympathy between the 
American Republics, the Union stands upon the 
threshold of more ample opportunity for the prose- 
cution of its beneficent activity. 

Many noble and beautiful public buildings re- 
cord the achievements and illustrate the impulses 
of modern civilization. Temples of religion, of 
patriotism, of learning, of art, of justice abound; 
but this structure will stand alone, the first of its 



kind — a temple dedicated to international friend- 
ship. It will be devoted to the diffusion of that 
international knowledge which dispels national prej- 
udice and liberalizes national judgment. Here will 
be fostered the growth of that sympathy born of 
similarity in good impulses and noble purposes, 
which draws men of different races and countries 
together into a community of nations, and counter- 
acts the tendency of selfish instincts to array nations 
against each other as enemies. From this source 
shall spring mutual helpfulness between all the 
American Republics, so that the best knowledge 
and experience and courage and hope of every 
Republic shall lend moral power to sustain and 
strengthen every other in its struggle to work out 
its problems and to advance the standard of liberty 
and peace with justice within itself, and so that 
no people in all of these continents, however op- 
pressed and discouraged, however impoverished and 
torn by disorder, shall fail to feel that they are not 
alone in the world, or shall fail to see that for them 
a better day may dawn, as for others the sun has 
already risen. 

It is too much to expect that there will not be 
controversies between American nations to whose 
desire for harmony we now bear witness ; but to 
every controversy will apply the truth that there 
are no international controversies so serious that 



they can not be settled peaceably if both parties 
really desire peaceable settlement, while there are 
few causes of dispute so trifling that they can not 
be made the occasion of war if either party really 
desires war. The matters in dispute between na- 
tions are nothing; the spirit which deals with them 
is everything. 

The graceful courtesy of the twenty Republics 
who have agreed upon the capital of the United 
States for the home of this International Union, 
the deep appreciation of that courtesy shown by 
the American Government and this representative 
American citizen, and the work to be done within 
the walls that are to rise on this site, can not fail to 
be powerful influences towards the creation of a 
spirit that will solve all disputed questions of the 
future and preserve the peace of the Western 
World. 

May the structure now begun stand for many 
generations to come as the visible evidence of mu- 
tual respect, esteem, appreciation, and kindly feel- 
ing between the peoples of all the Republics ; may 
pleasant memories of hospitality and friendship 
gather about it, and may all the Americas come to 
feel that for them this place is home, for it is theirs, 
the product of a common effort and the instrument 
of a common purpose. 



